JEFF GRANIT Jessica Leonard (c), 9, dances a waltz with Symone Thorne during the Titanic Ball, held at the Woodmere School, Eatontown, May 7 as part of the school district’s Titanic program for third-graders.

EATONTOWN — The boys in their tuxedos and the girls in lovely dresses waltzed around the floor of the multipurpose room of the Woodmere School at the Titanic Ball.

The gala was the culmination of their study of the sinking of that celebrated ship on its inaugural crossing of the Atlantic Ocean.

Third-grade students in all three of the district’s K-8 schools researched what people wore in 1912 so they could pull the appropriate costumes together, and they learned how to dance in gym class.

But that was only the tip of the iceberg when it came to all that the students learned in their integrated studies on the Titanic as part of the enrichment program.

JEFF GRANIT Essence Shomo, 8, and John Granato, 9, parade around the multipurpose room at the Woodmere School, Eatontown, showing off their costumes.

Janie Raposo, who took over as the third-grade enrichment teacher at mid-year, explained that the children’s studies about the Titanic crossed over from reading to math, to social studies, to art, to the aforementioned gym class, and included the making of bar graphs and pie charts comparing how many people lived and how many people died in each of the classes and among the crew.

After reading about the story of the Titanic in class, they went on the Internet to a Titanic Web site and read about the real people who were on the ship. They then picked a character they would be and studied his or her biography and researched what that person would be wearing on board the ship.

They even learned which lifeboat the survivors were in, Raposo said.

"They love the dancing, the dress," Raposo reported during a break from her emcee duties during the ball and party. "They wanted to learn about people who didn’t make it. They wanted to learn about the people who did make it."

Raposo said the students were particularly interested in learning about the different classes for the passengers traveling on the Titanic.

"They shared a sense of injustice," she said. "They thought that was so wrong."

The party began with all of the students interviewing each other about the character they had become — where they lived, how they lived, their age.

They then took part in a parade around the multi-purpose room to show off their costumes, which among boys included some in knickers and caps as well as those in tuxes, and for girls all kinds of pretty dresses — plain dresses, flowered dresses, frilly dresses — many worn with hats or boas.

When the music was turned on, they picked partners they had learned to dance with and waltzed around the floor, which became crowded to capacity.

"Boys and girls, what excellent dancers you are!" Raposo told them over the microphone as she watched them make their turns around the room.

The third-grade teachers got into the spirit of the occasion and wore costumes of the period, too. Raposo, for her part, was dressed in a sailor suit and hat, playing the role of a crew member.

After a break for refreshments that had been supplied by parents, the students eagerly took part in a Titanic trivia game. They competed as table groups to answer the most questions correctly and waved their hands madly in the air in the hope they would be called on to provide the answer and win a point.

When did the Titanic sink? Raposo asked. "1912" from Table 5. Who was the captain? "E.J. Smith" from Table 10. What were the Titanic’s four colors? "Black, white, yellow and red," and so on it went.

The students knew the Titanic struck the iceberg around midnight and sank at 2:20 a.m., that there were 20 lifeboats, and of the three classes on board the ship, the one with the most survivors, percentage-wise, was the first class. The class with the least survivors, percentage-wise, was the third class.

And, "no, " the children shouted when asked, Jack and Rose, the lead characters in the movie Titanic were not real people.

"We learned about real people," Raposo reminded them.

"Everyone wanted to be Jack and Rose," she explained later. "We had to tell them they weren’t real people."

Raposo, who replaced Jennifer Zimmerman as third-grade enrichment teacher when Zimmerman went out on maternity leave, was joined in presenting the Titanic studies by Agnes Zaorski, the technology specialist/teacher for the school district.

Zimmerman had initiated the Titanic program last year.

Raposo, who is a product of the Eatontown school system, having attended the Meadowbrook and Memorial schools, was working as a substitute teacher and an aide when tapped to fill Zimmerman’s shoes.

"They love it," she said of the students’ reaction to the Titanic studies. "They applaud when I walk into the room. They can’t wait.

"They enjoy learning everything about the Titanic," she added.

Zaorski said the children learn all about the disaster from a wonderful Titanic Web site — www.encyclopedia-titanica.org — which has the entire list of passengers and a biography of each. She said they are helped by having wireless iBook laptop computers, which make it possible for them to work right at their desk.

"Most schools pull out a few children for the gifted-and-talented classes," she observed. "We reversed it. All the children benefit," from the Titanic program. "We’re enriching all of the children."